Flowers are in bloom, the skies are blue, and tens of millions of dollars are up for grabs, too.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
The Spring Championship of Online Poker begins this weekend and there’s a reason we’re so excited about it here at the PokerStars Blog. The biggest names in the game routinely turn out for SCOOP tournaments, earning eye-popping prizes against the world’s very best competition.
There are other things like it, but nothing really tops SCOOP. Here’s what you can expect from the next two weeks here at PokerStars.
ALPHABET SOUP
SCOOP was the first PokerStars tournament series to offer tiered buy-in levels for every event on the schedule. Same game, similar structure, three different buy-in levels.
Look in the SCOOP lobby in the PokerStars client and you’ll notice there are three tournaments labeled “Event #1.” First is #1-L, with a $2.20 buy-in. Then there’s #1-M, with a $22 buy-in. Finally there’s #1-H, with a $215 buy-in.
This is the beauty of SCOOP: players of every bankroll level are able to challenge themselves again huge fields of players from around the world with the possibility of booking a massive return on their investment.
SERIOUSLY BIG MONEY
You’re gonna need a bigger case for all the money SCOOP is awarding
SCOOP always brings out the big guarantees. This year is no different in substance, only in scale:
• SCOOP 2019 features $75 million in guaranteed prize pools — the most of any PokerStars series ever held
• Every day on the SCOOP 2019 calendar features at least one tournament with a minimum guaranteed prize pool of $1,000,000
• The three Main Events are guaranteeing a combined $11.5 million
• Special Editions of favorite tournaments like the Sunday majors, Super Tuesday, and Thursday Thrill
THE DAYS ARE JUST PACKED
Two weeks of poker around the clock
There’s never a dull moment during SCOOP. Each day’s schedule is packed with poker goodness. The opening day features a schedule of 18 tournaments and no single day has less than nine tournaments.
Not only does SCOOP give you a chance to win big money on almost any bankroll, you can win playing almost any variety of poker. Besides the standard No-Limit Hold’em tourneys, titles are up for grabs in a variety of Omaha, Stud, Draw, and mixed-game disciplines. This year, for the first time, that variety includes tiered Pot-Limit Omaha Main Events.
DEEP STACKS AND SLOW STRUCTURES
In many respects SCOOP tournaments have more in common with major live poker tournaments than they do with other online poker tournaments. Many SCOOP events are two days long, and they all feature deep stacks and slow structures that lend themselves to intriguing, entertaining poker. They’re just as much endurance contests as they are tests of poker skill.
THE STARS WILL SHINE BRIGHT
Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt took two SCOOP titles in 2018
With so much money up for grabs, everybody shows up for SCOOP — especially the world’s best players. Count on seeing lots of familiar names in the daily reports. Then count on seeing them again before the series is done — double winners are relatively common. (Ten players, including world-beating crushers like Lena900 and RomeOpro, achieved this feat last year.)
You can also count on those familiar names turning up in all sorts of tournaments as they chase the prizes for winning the SCOOP Leader Board.
BRILLIANCE FROM CALVIN “CAL42688” ANDERSON
No one has crushed SCOOP as consistently as Calvin Anderson
More than any other player’s, Calvin “cal42688” Anderson‘s name has become synonymous with SCOOP success. If we knew you had a crystal ball that could see the future and you told us it said Anderson was going to win four events this year, we might raise our eyebrows a bit higher than usual — but we’d still believe you. That’s how good his track record has been during SCOOP.
Anderson won the SCOOP Player of the Series award in 2014. He nearly did it again last year, when he collected the ninth and tenth SCOOP victories of his career, extending a record that was already his alone. He also collected more knockout bounties than anybody else during the two weeks of SCOOP en route to finishing second behind Finland’s “calvin7v” on the overall Player of the Series leaderboard.
SATELLITES, SATELLITES, SATELLITES!!!
A robust satellite schedule is your SCOOP ace in the hole
With all these tournaments on the schedule, you’d better believe there are satellite feeders that can give you the full SCOOP experience for just a fraction of the cost.
One of the fastest ways to qualify for SCOOP is to play in special Spin & Go tournaments awarding tickets for SCOOP events. For as little as $2, you can battle with two other players for SCOOP tickets in a hyper-turbo, winner-take-all format. Players in the $215 version can win $1,050 or $10,300 SCOOP tickets, and they also have a shot to play for a cool million dollars.
There are also MTT and sit & go satellites running around the clock for almost every event on the schedule. Bottom line: if you want to play a SCOOP event but you’re on a budget, it isn’t hard to find a way to get in the game.